Wikis

I think that it can take a lot to support a wiki. I had thought about using one with my book club, but I don't think it would be a useful forum for them. I think that maybe I should work more with teachers when I use wikis. I think my friend Jaimie has a point the ability to constantly change what is put on there could become an issue, but I know several teachers that use them in their classrooms quite well. I plan on talking with them to see how they run the wikis. Since I am on the safety committee for the building, I was thinking that a wiki might be a great way to share information with the committee members as well as having a "living, breathing" safety document always available and not saved on someones personal drive. I think I need to observe my teachers who are using this program before I implement anything so that I can learn their tricks.

Online Productivity Tools

I am not sure what the link we were given was supposed to go to, but since it connects to the Wiki information I am going to guess at some of the tools. I think this means programs like Google Docs. I have several teachers now that are using this for surveys and tests and I have decided that one of my goals this year is to learn to use it. Last year at Hopper we had a subscription to SurveyMonkey, but since we don't have the money I want to use Google Docs to do this. I also liked the website Web 2.0 Cool Tools for Schools that we learned about in the focus activity as it has a lot of great sites and information to use. One of my favorite online tools is Animoto. I use this a great deal when I am creating book trailers. I hope this year to introduce my teachers and students to a lot of great tools that they can use to find, create, and present information in new ways.

Blog about Ning

After reading the information about the Ning and being a member of the CyFair librarian’s Ning I think that this would be a great way to create a community of readers. I think I would like to find out more about them, but I believe my book club students would benefit from having and helping to create a Ning. I like that they can post information about books and respond to each other and that they would be able to link to book trailers, movie trailers, and anything else that they thought it would be great to share. I like the idea that it is similar to Facebook so they would be comfortable with the social aspect of it, but I can limit membership to just my club members. Since they are often involved in other activities this would allow everyone to joint the discussion even if they can’t make the meeting. This could also give them to ability to interact more with The Cy-Springs students who were a part of our book club and still come visit with us during the year.

I am not sure that I would use this with teachers, but it might be a great way for the different teams to share, meet, and plan since there are no team leaders anymore. I might even suggest that the Differentiated Instruction teacher leaders create one for themselves to share ideas and information.

This is definitely a Web 2.0 tool that I would like to learn more about and incorporate into my library program.

Web 2.0 tools

I am now learning about some interesting Web 2.0 tools for my class and I must say that I feel rather unprepared to work with technology. There is so much out there it is a bit overwhelming.

I just read about Online Video and File Conversion and I agree with my friend Jaimie when she said that libraries have to jump on the band wagon. I must admit that I have not done much with videos and have never converted one off the Internet to show, so that is something I would like to "play" with and learn this year. Since shooting videos is such a popular thing with students I would like to become more familiar with it and then work with my teachers to show them how to incorporate it in the classroom. There was some great information here, now I just need to set a goal and work toward it to become more familiar and comfortable with the technology.

I also learned about some online productivity tools and have decided that I want to learn more about Google Docs and how I can use them in the library. I think it would be a great way to keep track of the books that I have read and reviewed as well as doing surveys for my teachers and students.

The course also gave information on Wikis and Nings. I am a member of several communities and can see benefits to both. I think I would like to try doing a Wiki with my teachers maybe as Library Advisory Group that way we can share and work on ideas. I might start a Ning for my book club students so that they can meet and discuss books online as well as post book trailers and links that we all would be interested in. I will have to think more about how I can use these online tools to support my library program, my teachers, and my students.

RSS feeds and Me

The next activity in my class was to find out about RSS feeds. As I was learning more about these I realized that I had already started to follow several blogs and websites this way without even realizing it. When I set my IGoogle account I had added the Google Reader. When I did that the blogs that I followed including Tales of a Middle School Librarian were already uploaded and I had added several website feeds as well. I had already connected to ALA for updates and news on awards and to Little and Browns Teenage group for updated on new YA books. For fun I had added Unshelved media so that I can always get my librarian comic strip. After reading The Librarian Lounge Lizard blog I added School Library Journal's breaking news feed.
When searching for feeds I went to sites that I already visit and looked for there feed icon. I also checkout out the blogs that I follow and those of other district librarians to find out what they are following. The feeds that I follow are interesting to me because they cover library or book information. For me this is great because I don't have to spend time visiting each website or blog individually, but I can see it easily becoming addicting and/or overwhelming. I am not sure how useful this would be to my students and teachers, but I would like to introduce the idea of using feeds with them and get their opinions of its usefulness.

Blogging

In my course I was asked to blog about what would be helpful about having a blog and what do I think my biggest challenge will be. I know that if I keep up with it I will be able to use it as a place to record my thoughts on the books that I have read. I would also like for it to be a place where my book club students and I can discuss the books we are reading outside of a formal club meeting. I think it could also be helpful to get feed back on my ideas and reviews of the books I read, videos I create and ideas that I present.
I think my big challenge will be to keep up with it. I will need to schedule time, at least in the beginning to make sure that I keep it updated so that it is a useful tool in my lifelong learner toolbox. By keeping up with my blog and inviting others to view and post comments, I will be modeling my skills as a learner, playing as I learn to use my blog as a teaching tool, and taking responsibility for my learning as I hold myself accountable for keeping my blog up to date, relevant, and interesting.

Lifelong Learning

Hello all,
It has been a while, a long while, since I posted, but I am starting again. Right now I am taking an online class about being a lifelong learner. One of the activities that we are doing is to set up a blog and share some of our intentions for our blog.
Those of you who have followed my blog in the past know that I like to use my blog to discuss and review the books that I am reading. I plan to continue doing that and adding in some of the things that I have learned. I am going to try using links and tags. I would also like to put in videos like the Animotos I have done so far and possibly try to do a podcast.